Viaspace brings Giant King Grass to the Philippines

Sagay Central, a sugar milling and sugar growing company and partner of energy crop cultivator Viaspace, has shipped and planted Giant King Grass in Negros Occidental, the Philippines.

Sagay Central crushes 4,000 tonnes of sugarcane daily and produces 150,000 tonnes of sugar per year.

The Giant King Grass was harvested from Viaspace's nursery in California, US and inspected by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to meet the conditions of the SPS Import Clearance of the Philippines Department of Agriculture before it was shipped.

The sugarcane is crushed or pressed to remove the juice which is then processed into crystalline sugar and molasses. The remaining chopped fibrous sugarcane (bagasse) is then combusted to generate renewable heat for the sugar making processes and electricity to power the sugar mill.

'We are happy, after some delays, to get this important biomass renewable energy project underway,' says Romie Cortez, president of Sagay. 'With Giant King Grass, we plan to be able to operate our proposed power plant year-round and provide the excess electricity to the national grid. We also plan to sell Giant King Grass to other sugar mills to do the same.'